Tournaments generally provide a structure whereby a set of competitors can compete against each other to determine a tournament champion. Although tournament structures vary, tournaments generally involve a sequence of rounds (or stages) in which subsets of the competitors compete against each other to determine which competitors are eliminated from the tournament and which competitors advance to the next round. In bracket-style tournaments, the results of a tournament round may determine not only which competitors advance to the next round of the tournament, but also which competitors compete against each other in the next round. Such tournaments are referred to herein as “bracket-style tournaments” because the tournament rounds can be organized diagrammatically into structures that resemble brackets (e.g., ‘} ’, ‘{’, ‘]-’, or ‘-[’). FIG. 2A illustrates a diagrammatic layout of a portion of a bracket-style tournament.
Examples of tournament rounds include group rounds and/or head-to-head rounds. In a group round, subsets of the competitors may be assigned to groups, and the competitors within a group may compete against each other in head-to-head competitions. Based on the results of the head-to-head competitions, one or more competitors from each group may advance to the tournament's next round. Examples of group rounds include the group stage of the quadrennial FIFA World Cup Finals (in which thirty-two soccer teams compete in eight groups of four, with each team in a group playing all the other teams in the group once, and two teams from each group advancing to the next round of competition), the group stage of the annual UEFA Champions League (in which thirty-two soccer teams compete in eight groups of four, with each team in a group playing all the other teams in the group twice, and two teams from each group advancing to the next round of competition), and the first rounds of the annual NCAA Division I Baseball and Softball Championship tournaments. In a head-to-head round, two competitors compete against each other head-to-head in a single competition or multiple competitions, with the winner advancing to the tournament's next round. Examples of head-to-head rounds with single competitions include the second stages of the FIFA World Cup Finals and the UEFA Champions League, in which the sixteen teams that advanced from the group stage compete against each other in eight games, with the eight winners advancing to the quarterfinal stage, and the eight losers being eliminated. Examples of head-to-head rounds with multiple competitions include each round of the Major League Baseball playoffs (in which teams compete against each other in a best-of-five series or a best-of-seven series), and each round of the National Basketball Association playoffs (in which teams compete against each other in a best-of-seven series).
One example of a bracket-style tournament is the annual NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship, often referred to as “March Madness,” which (ignoring the preliminary round) includes 64 competing teams and is organized into 6 rounds. In the first round each team competes against another team in one of 32 first-round matchups. The 32 winners of the first-round matchups advance to the second round, while the 32 losers are eliminated from the tournament. In the second round, each first-round winner competes against another first-round winner in one of 16 second-round matchups. The 16 winners of the second-round matchups advance to the third round, while the 16 losers are eliminated from the tournament. This process continues until only one team remains—the tournament champion. (The NCAA now refers to the preliminary round of four games as the “first round,” the round of 32 games as the “second round,” and so on. Herein, the NCAA tournament's round of 32 games is referred to as its “first round,” the round of 16 games is referred to as the “second round,” and so on.)
A popular activity associated with bracket-style tournaments is to predict the winners of the individual matchups and/or the group matchups. In some instances, predicting the outcomes of the matchups can be its own separate game. In conventional prediction games, participants are generally awarded some number of points for correctly predicting the winner of a matchup. Participants may compete against each other in groups, with the participant having the most points at the end of the tournament being the winner of the prediction game.